a clean knife
by theotherthompson
Summary: "Watch closely," his mother says, drawing Severus' focus back to her. She stirs counterclockwise once, twice, thrice. Pauses. Pokes at the Bluebell flame underneath the cauldron with her wand to make it grow bigger, grow hotter. The potion's bubbling increases, and then she continues stirring in odd, almost indecipherable patterns.


**AN:** QFLC Round 7 entry! I used the _picture, spider,_ and _word count_ prompts. (Prompts 5, 13, and 15.)

The title this time is from Daphne Gottlieb's "15 Ways to Stay Alive."

As a final note, Guy Fawkes Night, AKA Bonfire Night, is celebrated in Great Britain. Basically, people set fire to a straw man.

Total word count: 2, 000 (according to this site's word count. THAT'S RIGHT. 2K EXACTLY. I DID IT. And I had to cut down to do it, but whatever.)

* * *

Severus watches his mother add Scarab beetles to the potion, sprinkling it into the cauldron carefully. The potion steams in the cold air, bubbling ominously as she stirs clockwise. Underneath the pockmarked black metal, the Bluebell flame his mother made flickers, blue light flashing across the dark hardwood.

On the other end of the room, the fireplace crackles. The light from the separate fires illuminates the small areas around them, while the moonlight allows Severus to see hazy outlines of his living room - the couch, lumpy and old, pushed into the corner of the room. The plain wooden cabinet opposite of the couch, knobs shiny, doors closed securely. On top of that are photo frames holding pictures of the muggle variety.

Without looking he knows which ones are there. From left to right: his mother and father on their wedding day, smiling broadly. His mother in a white sundress, floppy strawhat drooping into her eyes. His father holding his pregnant mother tightly with a strained smile. The next photo frame lays face down, as it always has, but in it Severus remembers a family photo - his mother, father, a baby version of him, all looking somberly into the camera. The last is a photo of him, seven years old, gaping.

"Watch closely," his mother says, drawing Severus' focus back to her. She stirs counterclockwise once, twice, thrice. Pauses. Pokes at the Bluebell flame underneath the cauldron with her wand to make it grow bigger, grow hotter. The potion's bubbling increases, and then she continues stirring in odd, almost indecipherable patterns.

He breathes in and out in time with every revolution of the wooden spoon she uses, feeling his body settle. Next to the fireplace is a few degrees warmer than the rest of the room. His feet have thick woolen socks around them that his mother had knitted last summer, but his toes still sting. His nose stings. His right hand is warm from the cup of hot chocolate he's holding, the one he made himself after having come back home from the freezing stream with a broken left arm. Now the arm is numb from the cooling salves that his mother applied with a disapproving click of her tongue.

The arm is boneless, now, laying limply in his lap. The grease from the cooling salves is still wet. The salves reflect orange and gold light from the fire behind him. His skin is glowing. The hot chocolate burns his tongue, and his eyes wander away from his mother again to look at the shadow he casts - a hunched figure with the length so distorted that his shadow's head lays on his mother's lap as she kneels by the cauldron she set up in the middle of the room.

Glowing skin, a burn on his tongue, his head in his mother's lap.

Severus breathes out.

His mother clicks her tongue again. "Where did the cabbage go?" She says. Her narrow face pinches when she frowns. The deep lines in her face make her look years older than she is, world weary. Her plain dress flutters around her as she stands, graceful, and walks out of the room. The light from the hallway spills into the room, startling Severus with how bright it is compared to the natural lights his eyes had adjusted to. He closes his eyes, listens as the door creaks closed behind her. Immediately, the murmur of voices drifts underneath the door.

"- should have taken him to a hospital, Eileen," his father says. His voice is low and gruff, a bit concerned. Mostly tired and frustrated.

A soft noise. Severus is certain it's the sound of his mother clicking her tongue again; distaste given sound.

"No," she says. "I can fix him up just fine. No need for such inefficient methods."

His father growls. "You always do that, always -"

Severus breathes out. Opening his eyes, he finds the room in almost complete darkness. With the moonlight from minutes before no longer present, his eyes strain to see the shapes he knows are there. The fire from behind him and under the cauldron seem impossibly brighter.

The potion bubbles. Outside of the room is raised voices. Outside of the house is the rustling trees. Through the window Severus sees flakes of white falling. For a moment, he considers whether the small white specks should be more visible against the black backdrop.

The raised voices stop suddenly. In the ensuing silence, Severus plays with the thought that he can hear the snow outside falling. He listens, but he can't discern the sound. All he hears is the potion bubbling, the crackle of the fire as it eats away at the logs his father put in a few hours earlier, and his mother's soft footfalls as she comes back, opening and then closing the creaky door.

"Almost done," she tells Severus, almost soothingly. Severus remembers what he read about the Skele-Gro potion in the yellowed Hogwarts potions book his mother kept, and his lips thin. No doubt the pain will keep him awake tonight.

She stirs in the Chinese Chomping Cabbage quickly. Efficiently.

"You know," she says, "your father and I worry about you." It's a statement. Severus waits, setting his half-finished cup of hot chocolate on the floor. It's lukewarm now, anyway.

She stirs the potion and the steam darkens, becoming smoke. It smells terrible, but Severus keep his breathing steady - deep breaths in and out. He taps on the floor with his index finger, the nail too short from his biting to clack against the hardwood. It's the only sign of his impatience.

"Maybe you shouldn't go play by the stream by yourself anymore," she says. Severus almost smiles, knowing exactly what she's trying to do. His mother is a pureblood Prince through and through, traitorous decisions aside. A Prince always knew how to get their way without directly asking for it.

"No," he replies pleasantly. "It's okay, it's safe there." He taps again on the floor. Again. "I just tripped and fell down the hill when I was coming home."

His mother glances at him then looks back at the potion. She grabs the ladle she had set beside the cauldron a full hour and a half before and begins to pour the potion into a large vial. During the second time she carefully pours another spoonful into the vial, she asks, "I don't suppose the neighbourhood kids helped?"

The wording is important:

Neighbourhood kids; the bigger boys from the other side of town that had rough hands, nice clothes, bright hair, and mean grins. Helped; to provide what is necessary to accomplish a task. Neighbourhood kids helped, end statement.

She didn't ask if they helped him _after_ he fell.

"No. There was no one else there." He lies.

She stays silent for a moment, adding a third ladle of Skele-Gro to the vial. "How is your arm?" She asks. She leaves the ladle in the cauldron as she takes the handle of the cauldron and sets it down on the worn cloth that she put beside her set up to clean up.

The Bluebell fire licks at her hand when she extinguishes it. He remembers the Guy Fawkes Night celebrations at Spinner's End. Superimposed over the hand of his mother's in blue fire is a straw one, blackened and burning. He's is distinctly aware of how witches used to be burned at the stakes by muggles. The thought rankles.

"Fine," he says. "The scratches have healed. I can't feel it anymore."

She hums, coming closer to Severus on her knees. Her dress, pale blue, is getting dirty, but then it already is dirty. Some dust on the hems wouldn't make much of a difference. She hands him the vial. "Drink it all," she tells him.

Severus nods, then gulps it down quickly.

The taste is as terrible as the smell, and the concoction goes down his throat thickly. His arm begins stinging dully almost at once, the pain growing more and more as seconds pass.

He finishes the vial and hands it back to his mother, emulating her neutral face perfectly. His shoulders are visibly tense as he breathes - deep, in and out. He hasn't learned how to control his body just yet.

It's okay though. He has a year left before he goes to Hogwarts.

She takes the vial. "I still would like it better if you stayed closer to home when you go out to play." She tells him.

The moon comes out of hiding then, shining brightly through the glass of the window to highlight the features of his mother's face. The bags under her eyes look like dark bruises. Her skin looks as pale as his under the light. Her eyes look frighteningly sincere. They resemble his eyes - or rather, his resembles hers, but he prefers not to think like that.

He's his own.

"Okay," he finds himself saying anyway. "I'll say inside for tomorrow," he adds.

His mother's eyes narrow for a fleeting second. She sees through the wording, just as he did hers. He hasn't promised her anything but that he'll stay in the house for tomorrow; the day after that, and after that, they are all his to spend as he pleases.

Behind her, a spider hangs down from the ceiling on a delicate string of web. It's a small thing, black and sedate as it sinks down. "There's a spider," Severus tells his mother.

She doesn't turn to look. "Leave it," she says. "It will kill the bugs."

His arm hurts like a thousand spiders have bitten him all at once. His face is still neutrally blank, but now he fidgets. The cooling salve from earlier only helps a bit. The pain is coming from inside of his arm, and the salve is located on the surface of his skin. Most times, he finds that something on the exterior cannot change the interior.

"Why do you like the stream so much, Severus?" His mother asks as she moves away. She brings out her wand from where it's tucked in the sleeve of her dress and waves it at the potion set up. The utensils become clean in an instant as she vanishes the mess away, then they float up with another wave.

She walks over to the cabinet and opens it. With a precise flick of her wrist the cauldron, ladle, wooden spoon, and ingredients all fly into the shelves. When everything is tucked away neatly, she closes the cabinet again and puts away her wand.

The living room is completely cleared of anything magical. The only thing left to suggest anything not ordinary, _extraordinary,_ is the pain in his arm and his mother, gliding across the dark room to sit primly on the couch.

"It's peaceful." He answers. "In the summer you can catch frogs there, or fish. I saw a deer, once." But Severus doesn't care for summer.

His mother smiles. Severus looks at her smiling face for a moment, then turns to take the now cold cup of hot chocolate from the floor and sip at it. It's a good enough shield for now.

"And the company isn't too bad, either?" She asks.

Severus hides a wince into his cup. "No, I suppose not." He says, licking his lips. The drink tastes odd when it's cold.

"Your friends are welcome to come here," she says. "It'd be warmer."

Severus nods, but doesn't say anything. There's no one during the winter for him to bring home to warm up. It's spring he lives for; the explosion of flowers unfurling their petals all at once as a girl with vibrant red hair and a hearty laugh jumps high, high into the air.


End file.
